


Salvation

by Olivier_Mira



Category: Noblesse (Manhwa)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-07 22:16:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11633046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olivier_Mira/pseuds/Olivier_Mira
Summary: Fix it fic: Rai and Frankenstein's reunion after 820 years, done properly. It always bothered me how jarring it was to go back and reread Noblesse from the beginning, knowing what we now know about their relationship. They just seem incredibly out of character. So I fixed it. :)





	Salvation

It was finally quiet in Frankenstein’s office, the morning rush of incoming students having subsided. He breathed a sigh of relief, sipping his tea. Some days were easier than others and today was proving to be problematic. He could feel the beginnings of a migraine starting to inch slowly up his jaw toward his temples, like dark tentacles creeping into his skull. _Stress, I suppose. Just beginning of the school year stress._

But he knew that was a lie. _Master._ He had dreamed of Raizel last night and it had been so vivid, so crystal clear – like he was _there,_ really _there,_ as if Frankenstein could reach out and touch his silky dark hair. He had called him by name: _Frankenstein_. His Master’s voice had reverberated through his entire being: it was just so _strong._ Just like it had been in the old days. His dream self had been convinced that he would wake to find his Master there by his side. But just as quickly as the voice had come, it was gone, and Frankenstein had woken up broken, gasping for breath. _It hasn’t been this bad in years,_ he thought. _What’s wrong with me? Am I really going crazy?_

Maybe it was just the dream, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something strange was going on. _It’s nothing. I’m imagining things. It must be just stress. It’s these kids. They live to torment me._

Listening closely to make sure there was no one lurking around, he pressed a hidden button underneath his desk. A tiny shrine rose up out of the depths, featuring a gilded Byzantine image of a Saint with red eyes. Frankenstein lit the crimson candle inside its jeweled holder and bowed his head. _Master._

The image was a miniature copy of an icon he had procured from a tiny village church in a faraway countryside. **ΑΓΙΟΣ ΡΑΙΖΕΛ** **ΣΩΤΗΡ** it read, Raizel the Holy Savior. The Saint who made it rain blood. When Frankenstein first gazed upon the life-sized image for the first time in that little church – _his Master’s very eyes!_ – he had thrown himself to the ground and lay prostrate in front of it, weeping, for days. Those were the early years when he had scoured the earth far and wide, desperately searching for any trace of Raizel whatsoever. Only to be bitterly disappointed, time and time again.

But not that day. Frankenstein _had_ to obtain that painting. They didn’t want to sell it to him, but fortunately he could be _very_ persuasive. Eventually he bribed the church leaders with a skilled duplicate of the painting and enough money, books and priceless manuscripts to overcome whatever was left of their religious scruples. The original now resided in a locked vault deep underneath Frankenstein’s dwelling. When the entirety of the world became too much, he would lock himself down there, light a hundred candles to illuminate his Master’s face and just lay there on the velvet pillows, pouring out all of his despair to his absent beloved.

He never did figure out exactly how Raizel’s image came to grace the walls of that little church. Apparently long before Frankenstein’s time, his Master had saved their village from a monster of some sort. It was said to have been painted by the young girl who brought Raizel to the village and saved all of them. Normally Frankenstein wouldn’t have given credence to such a story – why would Raizel have left his mansion in Lukedonia for such a relatively minor event? How could that little girl have made it all the way to Lukedonia in the first place? It made no sense. But the painting was so realistic, something _had_ to have happened. The artist had exactly reproduced the quiet melancholy in his Master’s eyes, to an astonishing degree. She must have met him in person. Whatever the details were, Raizel had certainly been to that village in the distant past, there was no doubt about it. But as there had been no trace of him being there in hundreds of years, Frankenstein had had no choice but to move on.

Gazing at the miniature shrine on his desk, Frankenstein took a deep breath and let it out, feeling some of the tension drain out of him. He reached into his pocket and fingered the tiny gold key he always kept there on its chain, the key to his secret haven. _Only a few more hours and I will come home to you, Master._

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew this obsessive behavior of his wasn’t healthy. Raizel wouldn’t want him to be like this and he knew it. Frankenstein had read a hundred books about it, in fact. Modern humans were seemingly obsessed with self examination. He was willing to try anything if it kept him alive long enough to meet his Master again. Unfortunately, there was no self help book for “What to do when your beloved Master with whom you have created a bond of blood has been missing for 820 years.” No, in that, as in so many areas, Frankenstein was entirely on his own.

It had gotten better for a while, since he started the school. Creating something that could one day benefit his Master calmed him. But for whatever reason, recently he found himself spending more and more time in that secret sanctuary and less and less time in reality. It scared him to think that his time in his inner sanctum with this facsimile of his Master was starting to become more real to him than the life he lead during the day as the jovial Chairman of Ye Ran High School. Day after day, his beatific smile was becoming more and more forced. Despite his serene outer appearance, he alone knew the bitter truth: that he was dying inside, curdling like sour milk. An inner hollowness was spreading through his soul like a virulent plague.

 _It_ was winning, and no matter what Frankenstein told himself, he knew it was only a matter of time before he succumbed to _It_ entirely. The fact that he had somehow incredibly lasted 820 years without being consumed by _It_ was a miracle… that is, it would be if Frankenstein believed in miracles. But there was only one living, breathing miracle for him, only one Savior who could bring him up out of _Its_ darkness, and Frankenstein had lost him. Through his own ignorance and carelessness he’d lost him and now he was damned to an eternity without him and if he thought too much about that he might actually descend into madness.

To say that he missed Cadis Etrama di Raizel would be woefully inadequate. Frankenstein wasn’t sure there were words in any human language to describe how he felt without his Master: how gutted, how devastated, how shattered he was. Those first few years were like being brutally scarred with a red-hot brand over and over again each morning when he awoke, the excruciating, raw agony burning into his skin. It eventually transformed into a dull ache, a throbbing chronic injury, which at any time could reawaken and knock him down with sharp, agonizing pangs of loneliness and despair. Then over time it slowly became like a missing limb that ached pathetically, like a soldier who has had his leg blown off years ago in the war, yet could still feel the phantom pain. 

Honestly, when it came down to it, Frankenstein was being slowly eaten alive. A gnawing emptiness that could never be filled plagued him constantly, a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach that never really went away. It was made up of a maelstrom of ravaging emotions that had been torturing him for hundreds of years: _Regret_ – what else could he possibly have done? Why hadn’t he tried harder? If only he had been more attentive! If only he had asked more questions when he’d had the chance…! _Guilt_ \- had he displeased his Master? Was that the real reason he disappeared? If only he had been smarter, faster, more competent, more patient… _Disgrace_ \- there must be something wrong with him. Why hadn’t he been able to find Raizel, to whom he was supposedly still tethered? Why could he not reach down that line? Why had he failed, time and time again? No matter what he did, he kept failing!

And when those horrible voices increased in volume so that even the shrine wasn’t enough… he went deeper, deeper than the hidden memorial, to an even more secret sanctum… where he pulled _It_ out. He knew it didn’t help. He knew his Master didn’t like _It_. He knew it hadn’t helped in those early years when he had wielded _It,_ the Dark Spear, like a demon possessed. And woe betide the enemies that had stepped in his way during that time… and in the worst of those times, blinded by the mad fury of his grief… the ones who weren’t even enemies, they just _pissed him off_ at the wrong time and… And _It_ swallowed them all.

And _It_ grew and grew. And the worst, the absolute worst, most agonizing pain came from the fact that Frankenstein knew that if Raizel were to walk through his door right now, today… His Master would be extremely disappointed in him. Because of _It._ That horrible realization filled his entire being with a sickening, grinding shame. A shame so thick that he wore it like a mantle of sorrow. It was so heavy that there were days when he wondered whether he would be crushed under the sheer weight of it.

But Frankenstein was a fighter and he always had been, even before he met Raizel. And he would _not_ abandon his Master, he absolutely would _not._ It didn’t matter. All of this didn’t matter. He just had to keep moving forward. Put one foot in front of the other. Like he had done every single day for the past 820 years. Even when it felt like walking on hot coals.

He put his head in his hands, rubbing his temples in a futile attempt to prevent the pain from inevitably increasing. Once again he reached into his pocket and touched the small key for reassurance. _I just have to get through today. Just one more school day. Then I can go home to Master. Yes, then…_

There was a knock on his door. For some reason, it filled Frankenstein with an unreasonable fear. Hurriedly pressing the button to lower the little shrine, he opened the school newspaper in front of him to cover its descent.

“Yes? Come in.”

Han Shinwoo, derelict extraordinaire, strolled through his office door, just as he had done a hundred times before. _What a surprise. That kid attracted trouble like an unruly werewolf. What on earth was I so worried about?_ Frankenstein quickly folded the newspaper, attempting to dispel his worries.

“Shinwoo, what brings you here? Are you in trouble again?”

Shinwoo smirked, his bookbag slung lazily over his shoulder. “Nah, I’m just supposed to bring you this transfer student. Teacher said.”

 _Transfer student?_ That was strange. No one had informed Frankenstein of any incoming transfer students.

“I see. Thank you, Shinwoo. You may go on to class.”

Han Shinwoo sauntered out the door. There was a pause.

“Please do come in.”

And suddenly, just like that, Frankenstein’s entire world came to a screeching halt.

Cadis Etrama di Raizel had just walked through his office door.

Frankenstein thought he was legitimately going mad. _That’s it. I’ve finally cracked. I’m hallucinating._ He stood abruptly, still clutching his teacup, hands shaking, hot tea scalding his wrist, yet he barely noticed.

“M- _Master??”_

**_Frankenstein._ **

_That voice._

The teacup slipped from his hand, but before it could crash to the ground… A thin, elegant hand reached out and caught it midair. The dark liquid sloshed back into the cup at his command without dirtying the fine white lace at his cuff.

Raizel took a sip. “Bitter,” he said.

“Master!”

Frankenstein knees buckled and he nearly collapsed, but Raizel caught him, too. Then the walls collapsed, the room collapsed, the _world_ collapsed, and there was only… _Master._

Their bond caught fire and thousands of colors, images and feelings flooded through Frankenstein at once. Shock, like being struck by lightning; disbelief, fearing some trick or deceit; relief, like pure, sweet water flowing into the most withered of deserts; worry, because he didn’t know what had happened to his Master, but he could feel intense pain and could tell that he had been deeply wounded; anger, for whoever had done this, followed by vehement, vicious rage. _How dare they? How_ dare _they!_ _I’ll kill them! WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS? I’LL KILL THEM ALL!! I’LL KILL-_

Frankenstein stopped abruptly and pulled back, dazed. A wave of intense anguish had suddenly washed over him via their connection. He raised his eyes to look at Raizel and the expression on his Master’s face was the saddest he had ever seen. The consecrated image that he had been staring at for hundreds of years didn’t even begin to convey the abject sorrow of those anguished eyes in real life. Eyes which now widened their gaze. Frankenstein realized, with horror, that he was looking at _It._ He panicked and dropped immediately to the ground, his clawed hands scraping at his Master’s feet.

“M-Master, I’m s-so, I’m so sor-”

Frankenstein was choking on raw emotion. He couldn’t breathe; he couldn’t see. His heart felt like a wild animal clamoring to get out of his chest. _He knows. He_ knows _and now… now he’ll leave again; he’ll leave me alone; Master! Master_ please. _Please don’t leave me! I don’t think I could bear it._ PLEASE.

But his Master’s gentle hands were suddenly enclosing his and he realized that Raizel had dropped to the ground beside him. Frankenstein’s dark claws immediately retreated at Raizel’s soothing touch.

“Frankenstein.” His voice was so soft, like a little bird with a mournful cry. “I am so sorry.”

“W-what? Why would you…?” He looked up at Raizel in astonishment. “You are apologizing to _me??_ Master! _Why?"_

“I left you alone. With that horrible thing. All this time. How long…?”

“It’s – it's been 820 years, Master.”

Raizel’s eyes actually became sadder, if that was possible. He squeezed Frankenstein’s hands in his, conveying his utter sincerity. “I left you alone for all those years. And I can see that you have suffered greatly. I’m so sorry.”

“B-but it’s my own fault, Master!” Tears were flowing in torrents. “I-I used it too much. Even though I knew you wouldn’t like it. Even though I knew you’d be disappointed. I… I’m so, so sorry, I’m so-”

**_Frankenstein._ **

Raizel took him in his arms and Frankenstein simply fell apart. He clung to his Master and howled like a thousand werewolves. He didn’t care if the entire school heard him (though later he was very glad that he had decided to soundproof his office last year). Raizel held him tightly, stroking his soft hair. Wave after wave of relief washed over Frankenstein as his Master intoned to him over and over: **_It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not leaving. I won’t leave you. You’re safe._**

Frankenstein couldn’t stop touching Raizel – his face, his arms, his smooth skin. A part of him was screaming that he was being disrespectful, but another part of him didn’t care. _He’s here. He’s come back to me. He’s_ here!

He cupped his Master’s face in his hands. “Are you… are you really? A-are you really _here?”_ A part of him was still in disbelief.

In answer, Raizel gave a small, delicate smile and pressed his lips to Frankenstein’s. Frankenstein returned the kiss, sending a fervent wish to every God he didn’t believe in that this moment would never, ever end. That he would go on kissing Raizel to the end of time, an eternity of kisses, never ending bliss.

But it was actually Frankenstein who broke the kiss, because he suddenly started giggling hysterically. Raizel looked at him, bemused, but he knew Frankenstein, so he waited patiently.

“It’s just…” He really couldn’t stop laughing. _Either I am actually going mad, or this is actually the greatest day of my life._ “I kind of threw two kids into detention yesterday for doing exactly this on the school grounds.”

“What’s detention?” Raizel brushed a stray curl behind Frankenstein’s ear.

“It’s like… punishment.” Frankenstein breathed in his Master’s sweet scent, which he had missed desperately. It was making him very nearly drunk.

“Hmmm. Perhaps you need to be punished, then?”

Frankenstein did a double take. _Was that a_ smirk?? _Did my Master just…?_

“Yes, Master.” Frankenstein grinned from ear to ear: his true, genuine, devious grin, nothing like the phony pretenses of late. _Correction: this_ is _actually the greatest day of my life._ Sliding like a snake, he slipped into a position directly underneath his Master. A tinkling sound met their ears.

“What was that?” Raizel asked, although Frankenstein could tell he didn’t really care what the answer was, since he was still smirking and his red eyes were on fire.

Frankenstein detached the little key from the chain where it had remained secured for several hundred years and tossed it cheerfully across the room. “Absolutely nothing, Master. Do continue.”


End file.
